S.C. boy's slaying raises suspicions

COLUMBIA, S.C. - The young mother called police with a story out of any parent's nightmares. Amanda Reagan Smith says a knife-wielding carjacker forced her to drive to a secluded, wooded area in Greenville, S.C. Once there, he pushed her out, locked the car doors and pressed a pillow to the face of her 7-year-old son.

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The 26-year-old former nursing student said she shattered one of the car windows and struggled with the assailant. But when deputies arrived, little Devon Epps was dead on the ground next to the car, his mother on a cell phone with a 911 dispatcher. An autopsy indicated the boy had been strangled.

Now, more than a month after the Aug. 12 killing, the case remains unsolved. And the worry that once filled Greenville has sharpened into questions about his mother's account. The case has also revived vivid memories of another mother named Smith ― Susan Smith ― who told a similar tale.

In the hours after the killing, police dogs and helicopters searched the woods where Amanda Reagan Smith said the attacker had fled. Sketches of a suspect she described were posted in businesses and neighborhoods.

Sheriff's deputies say they are pursuing more than 60 leads in Devon's death, and forensic tests are still being performed on the car where his mother said he was killed.

"It's one of those situations where we are just having to exhaust every lead that comes in," sheriff's Lt. Shea Smith said. "We're not calling the mother a suspect at this time, but certainly we are looking at the whole investigation. We're not ruling out any possibility at this point."

In 1994, about an hour east of Greenville, a woman named Susan Smith reported that she had been carjacked by a man who escaped with her sons.

Smith went on national television to beg for the boys' safe return. Days later, she confessed to strapping them into their car seats and letting her vehicle roll into a lake, where they drowned. She was sentenced to life in prison.

Attorney Tommy Pope, who as a prosecutor sought the death penalty for Susan Smith, said the most recent carjacking scenario gives "pause for concern."

"Arguably if the goal was to have the car, he had the car," Pope said in an interview. "A child would be the least likely target in that scenario. Stranger things have happened, but it begs a number of questions."

Andrea Regan Smith's relatives declined to comment when reached by The Associated Press and refused to have her talk about the case.

In an obituary, they wrote: "Devon, you are such a joy in our lives. You will be greatly missed and remain forever in our hearts. Love, Mama and family."

Records obtained by The Associated Press show the boy nearly perished in a house fire just a few months before he was killed.

On May 1, Devon Epps was hospitalized for smoke inhalation after a fire that started in the bedroom where he was sleeping destroyed a third of home where he and his mother lived. Smith told authorities she had "left a lamp turned on as well as a night light," according to a police report. The fire was ruled accidental, and authorities have not reopened that case.

Smith attended Greenville Technical College as a nursing student from 2003 to 2006, according to the school, which declined to provide more information about her. Police say it's unclear whether she was employed at the time of the killing.

Parents are no longer afraid of a killer on the loose in Greenville, a city of 56,000.

"A lot of people have their own ideas of who they feel did it," said Amoretta Dogan, volunteer chairwoman of the Parent Teacher Association at Devon's former elementary school.

Smith's neighbor Debra Drinkard said she didn't know the mother and son well because they had lived on her street only a few months. The two stayed to themselves, she said.

"It was just mostly him and her," said Drinkard, who lived across the street. "There's a lot of unanswered questions. Whether she's telling the truth I couldn't say ... but the account does seem strange."

Soon after the slaying, a television reporter interviewing the boy's father, David Epps, told him that some members of his own family thought the sketch based on Amanda Reagan Smith's description looked a little like an older version of David Epps himself.

Looking at the sketch, Epps said the revelation was "weird." He was in jail at the time of the killing for failure to pay child support, police said.

"God will have his vengeance and the person who's guilty will eventually be revealed," Epps told Greenville television station WYFF.

Lt. Smith said the relationship between David Epps and Smith at the time of the killing is unclear. Attempts by the AP to reach David Epps were unsuccessful. A phone number listed in his name was unpublished.

Pope, the former prosecutor, said it's human nature to think that only a stranger could kill a child.

"We feel better if it's a carjacker ― the boogeyman that comes to do it," he said. "That we can kind of prepare for and protect for."